Very few people love opening their credit card statements with any frequency, but banks are giving you a pretty fruitful reason to take a peek. No, this isn’t a credit card sales pitch, it’s a pitch to get more out of the credit cards that are probably already in your wallet, just for engaging more with them. Who wouldn’t take 25% back on purchases they are going to make anyway?
American Express and Chase are the current USA and UK market leaders in targeted spending offers, pushed directly into your credit card account. That’s right – there’s only one place to find them (other than on blogs) and with potentially hundreds back via points or cash back on your account, they’re truly worth a gander.
It’s genuinely all about logging into your credit card account on your phone or computer and scrolling down. Amex has “Offers” and Chase offers “Chase Offers“, which are typically found below, or to the side of your statement info and recent transactions. How important are these? Amex proclaims that $725,546,245.00 has been saved by card members thus far. That’s nearly a billion dollars.
The thing is, most people check their credit card statements once a month, sometimes not even online, and that means huge money, or points, slipping through the cracks.
By regularly logging in online, you’re not only making sure that all account activity is normal and good, you’re also finding the best spending opportunities in real time. They can even be stacked with things like Rakuten to get extra cash back or Amex Points, and other multiple offer opportunities.
For example, I’m almost constantly booking hotels, Airbnb’s and airfare on my cards, and I recently received an offer of 20% back on Kimpton Hotels up to $120, 10% back at United AIrlines up to $38, 15% back on Marriott purchases with a $48 max and 5% back on Airbnb with a $28 max.
Keep in mind, these offers aren’t just travel centric, but include fashion, food, and other lifestyle elements.
The Kimpton offer alone would allow me to book an IHG Hotel during the current 4x points promo and get the points, since I’m booking direct, and get $120 back for spending circa $1000. That’s a super deal. If I clicked first through Rakuten, I could add another 1-5% cash back or better, on top of all the other joys.
Whereas Chase Offers are typically pure cash back via a statement credit on your account, Amex has famously offered many targeted offers where points are at play, such as 20,000 bonus points for spending $1000 with Air France.
If you booked with an American Express Platinum Card, you’d earn 5X points since it’s an airfare purchase with an airline, for a total of 25,000 Amex Points on just a $1000 purchase. It would be underselling to value 25,000 Amex Points at $400, so that’s effectively a 40% rebate, or better…
These offers come, but they also go. If there’s any-any chance you’ll end up taking advantage of one, even inadvertently, be sure to add the offer to your account. Yep, that’s right – the banks don’t just give you the extra points – they give you them when you register the offer to your account.
Make a point of checking regularly and pressing “register” or “add to account” so that when you do spend, the work is done. You’ll find your points or your statement credit on the account in due time, and that’s quite exciting – because you’re getting money back for things you were probably going to buy anyway. If the merchant is lucky, they’ll have also convinced you to spend a little more, just to take advantage of their juicy offer.
